THé OLD FR.léNDS P ART of the plot of their friend- ship, the reason for it, is that the police commissioner has become an old bachelor now, and his life rests upon other lives. He rests upon people for whom he is not really responsible. Helena is by far the most important. She is important quite in herself, be- cause anyone with television in this part of Germany knows her by sight. The waitress, just now, blushed with ex- citement when she recognized her, and ran to the kitchen to tell the others. The commissioner and Helena have been friends forever. He cannot re- member when or how they met, but if he were asked he would certainly say, "I have alwa.ys known her." It must be true: look at how charming she is today-how she laughs and smiles, and gives him her time; oh, scarcely any, if the minutes are counted, but as much as he needs, enough. She is younger than the commissioner, but if she were to turn away, dismiss hIm, withdraw her life, he would be the orphan. Yes, he would he an orphan of fifty-three. It is the greatest possible anxiety he can imagine. But why should she? There is no quarrel between them. If ever there was, he has forgotten it. It was never put into words. He is like any police- man; he knows one meanIng for every word. When, sometÏInes, he seems to have transgressed a private rule of hers, it is outside thE' limits of the words he knows, and he sImply cannot see what he has done. She retreats. In a second, the friendship dissolves, and, without understanding why he deserves it, he is orphaned and alone. When the weather SUItS her and shE' has nothing urgent to do, she lets him drive her to a garden restaurant on a height of land above Frankfurt. It is in a suburb of quiet houses- "like being in the moun- tains," he says. He sniffs the air, to demonstrate how pure it is. "But you really should come here at night," he says; for then the swimming pool in Lach of the gardens is lighted blue, green, ultramarine. The com- missioner flew over in a helIcopter once, and it J,-; red. On a hot autumn day, the garden seems picked out in bright wool, like a new carpet. The wine, the cake , the thin silver vase of bitter-smelling blooms ("Nasturtiums," he suddenly cries out, slapping the table, remember- ing) attract all the wasps in the neigh- borhood. He is afraid for Helena- imagine a sting on that white skin! He tries to cut a wasp in two with a knife, misses, captures another in the child's empty glass. "The child needs men, you see," Helena goes on. "He needs men to tel] him what things are. He is al ways with " women. Somewhere in her career she ac- quired this little boy. She does not sa} who the father is, but even when she was pregnant, enormous, the commis- sioner never asked. He treated the situation with great tact, as if she had a hideous allergy. It would have been a violation of their friendship to have pried. The rumor is that the father was an AmerIcan, but not a common drunken one, an Occupation leftover-no, it was someone high- ly placed, worthy of her. The child is a good little boy, never troublesome.'" He eats his cakes with a teaspoon, and It is a wobbly performance. His fingers come into it sometimes; then he licks them. He scrapes up all the chocolate on his plate, because his mother dislikes the sight of wasted food. "1 mean it. Talk to him," Helena says. She may be teasing; but she could be serIOUS, too.. "ChIld," says the obedient commissioner. "Do you know why champagne overflows when the cork is taken out of the bottle?" " N 1 "I " 0, W1yr says tIelena, answering for her son. The commissioner re- flects, then says, "Be- cause air got in the bot- tle. " "You see?" she tells the boy. "This is why d " you nee men. She is laughing, so she must be pleased. She is gIving the commis- sioner her attention On , >,f .1.- 1itif crumbs like these, her / laughter, her attention, I'{. L- he thinks he can live for- ever Even when she was no one, when she was a lIttle actress who looked. . . it was... it should have been photographed... or paInted. . if it had been painted. . described hy Goethe, he cries, it could not have been more . . . "T ell us about Goethe," Helena in- terrupts, laughing. She has brought her little boy along. The three of them sit at a table spread with a clean pink cloth. On a silver dish, and on stil1 another pink cloth, this one embroidered, are wedges of chocolate cake, and mocha butter cakes, and Linzer Torte, and meringue shells filled with whipped cream, sprinkled with pink, green, yellow sugar. The champagne in the silver bucket is for the commissioner and Helena. There is no view from here, not even of sWImming pools. They are walled in by flowering shrubs. It is a pity, he says, for if they could only see . . . "T ell the child what all these flowers are called," Helena interrupts. But the commissioner does not know their names. He knows what roses or tulips are, but most flowers have names he has never nepded to know. Flowers are pale mauve or yellow In spring, blue' or yellow as summer wears on, and in the autumn orange, yellow, and .,; --, / .. '- " - , t, ( ., II , L 1 .. / 'b IiiiifIa _ / V'" .".... '- - '-- " ---- --- ^.(;{H. ^.o.:J: ?^ ':l "': ")'$ y ((T ell him it's Mission Control!)) '7 , .- . 27